back to article Polar caps wane as Mars tries global warming

Global warming and melting polar ice caps are not just problems here on Earth. Mars is facing similar global changes, researchers say, with temperatures across the red planet rising by around 0.65 degrees over the last few decades. The trigger for the changes on Mars are, however, totally different from those mechanisms …

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  1. Scott Wichall

    Hmmm Global Warming

    "Phil Christensen, a planetary scientist at Arizona State, cautions against over-extrapolating from the data, however. He told Nature.com that it is unlikely that in 500 years time the Martian ice caps would be completely gone:

    "They're looking at a piece of the cycle, other processes could turn this around to a place where the ice-caps start growing again. You can't take 10 years of data and extrapolate out to 1,000 years.""

    Mr Christensen should tell this to his fellow earth climate scientists then....

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sauce for the goose...

    So let me get this straight. Two neighbouring planets in our solar system are suffering from global warming. And this is nothing to do with solar activity? Or maybe it is on one, but *definitely* not on the other??

  4. Tom Richards

    Sauce for the goose

    Changes in solar activity are a part of Earth's climate change, too. We would expect a small rise in average temperature, if that were the only thing operating on Earth's climate. We are experiencing a large rise instead, and the difference is due to the effect of around 6 000 000 000 humans. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png.

  5. Martin Taylor

    Sauce for the goose

    A documented POV which suggests that current concern about global warming is largely unjustified may be found at http://www.oism.org/oism/s32p686.htm .

  6. Tony

    So which came first

    the heat-fueled dust devils or the heat produced by darker rocks uncovered by the dust devils?

    Where did all this lighter colored dust go? Did it strategically settle on only like-colored ground?

    Increased solar activity or deliberate discrimination by dust?

    You decide.

  7. Tyson Boellstorff

    Everybody knows that the Mars sun is different that Earth's

    It's all part of our foul plan to bring global warming back to where the Romans had left it the last time -- we still have 6 feet of sea level to go before we catch up to them. (Look up the archaeology of salt harvesting sometime -- it takes a large flat area at sea level, and the last Roman fields were 6 feet above current sea level)

    Basically, those who would create a total worldwide nanny state through fear mongering have discovered the weather. Nothing new there.

  8. Tom Richards

    Sauce for the goose etc.

    Martin, I'd sooner trust Granma than the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine: http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine. There are rules about calling yourself an Institute here in the UK, and it wouldn't pass them.

    Tony, solar output has been increasing (see the graph I posted earlier). In the article, you'll see that other scientists are saying that albedo changes may be measurement error. In answer to your question, increased solar output could cause the temperature to rise, which could make the dust devils worse, which could uncover some darker rocks, which could cause the temperature to rise further, forming a virtuous circle.

    In any case, I'm not going to judge the interpretation until I see the research. Lucy, can you provide a link to where you got these findings from? I can't find anything using Google Scholar.

  9. Chris Forzetting

    Source for the Goose?

    Michael Crichton's State of Fear should be required reading for anyone allowed to vote. As for wikipedia, using them as a source, especially after they were willign to hire a known and exposed fraud, seems a bit "absolutely brimming over with wrongability."

    Most scientists believe that there was an ice age 20K years ago. The ice melted, and not an SUV in sight. Climate change is just that - change. It does not require human intervention, and to assume responsibility for natural occurrences is at least arrogant and at most blind foolishness.

    Should we seek non-polluting technologies for transport and power generation? Of course, because pollution is bad for our health. But let's do it for proven valid reasons, not because we read the summary of the summary of the summary of the real WHO scientists' global warming report, which did not conclude that human activity was causing anything at all.

  10. Tom Richards

    Source for the goose

    Look at the sources. The Wikipedia picture uses data from the international scientific community, whereas State of Fear is not reality-based.

    What does the World Health Organisation have to do with anything, anyway? You might as well ask UNESCO what their position is on world trade. The competent authority is the IPCC.

    Natural factors have always caused climate change. The addition of six billion carbon dioxide emitting humans is just another factor - one which the scientists take into account and Crichton et al do not.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Those who complain

    about El Reg's lack of objectivity and scholarship need only look here to their clientele for an explanation.

    Or perhaps most of the more evolved members of the audience are simply too disgusted with those they must share their planet with to enter the fray.

    America's founding fathers viewed universal suffrage (well, at least for white males) with considerable trepidation, which is one of the reasons public education played so large a part in their plans (usually addressed at the state level, though, so don't look for it in our national Constitution). With the obvious decline in analytical competence over recent decades, their fears appear to have been all too well justified.

    Global Warming dismissers are just today's version of Flat Earthers: vocal, impervious to evidence, and wrong. Unfortunately, the consequence of their public obstinacy is likely to be considerably more serious.

  12. Rebecca Putman

    About Dr Art Robinson of OISM...

    You might want to visit http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1067 to see him and his POV debunked.

  13. Martin Taylor

    Sauce for the goose

    Sorry, that's a debunking? Where does it address the paper's content?

  14. Gordon Duncan

    Lucy Sherriff - you must try harder!

    I'm sorry, but this simply will not do. You have failed to use any of the politally correct words expected in an article of this nature. I must insist that you re-write it immediately, ensuring that "chaos", "doom" "armageddon", etc. are liberally interspersed throughout your sentences. You may, if you wish, use a thesaurus to assist you. Please remember that the whole purpose of writing about planet temperatures (ours or elsewhere) is to scare the living daylights out of your readers - you have failed miserably with this attempt so I must ask you to try again and make your piece much more convincing.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The competent authority is the IPCC.

    Of course we know the IPCC personally have no interest in this scare mongering.

    Just think of all the jobs that would be lost if this turns out to be a load of rubbish aswell as the goverments need to find a more plausable method to increase taxes.

    As for "The addition of six billion carbon dioxide emitting humans" forgive me but were all of these people born in the last 50 years?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mars Warming

    It is patently obvious the warming on Mars is caused by the same forces that cause warming on Earth.... The recent increase in Mars rover emissions from the many probes sent to this world from our own.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A couple of questions

    I'm getting more ignorant on global warming by the minute. Can someone who knows anything please answer this:

    1) Does the consistent and rapid warming which we have all observed over the last 20 years or so have a known parallel at any point in history?

    2) And if climate change is all just a natural process, as Chris Forzetting assures us, does that mean that this period of warming can be safely ignored, even though the projected effects of this existing trend would indicate significant consequences for coastal populations (and polar bears, apparently)?

  18. Martin Taylor

    A couple of questions

    (1) See the link I posted above. Additionally, Google "global warming dissent" and follow up some of the links. Look for facts, not opinions, then look for any rebuttals of those facts. Be sure to ignore ad-hominem attacks like the one linked to by Ms Putman above.

    This, I think, is the best we non-scientists can do to inform ourselves.

    (2) If climate change is indeed a natural process, that doesn't mean we can safely ignore it - tsunamis and volcanoes are natural processes too. It will, however, affect the approach we should take to the problem. If global warming is anthropogenic, then by all means let's cut carbon emissions etc., in the expectation that this will make a difference. If, however, it is a natural process, then not only will the foregoing be useless, but it will distract us from taking measures to protect ourselves from the effects of that process.

  19. Tom Richards

    Sources

    And when you find someone who thinks they've proved that putting (currently) seven million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year can't have any effects, have a look at what the Met Office has to say at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/index.html or the Royal Society at http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=6229.

    Also, can we have numbering on the posts? It's fine when there's only a few posts, but this is getting confusing now.

    1) There are possibly some (very rare) occasions when the earth has warmed very rapidly before. See http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=9986. This is worrying research, since it shows that feedbacks may produce larger swings in temperature than previously thought.

    2) The likely effects of global warming are disastrous. Take a look at this IPCC's Policy-maker's Summary: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/005.htm.

    Some global warming is inevitable. Reducing carbon emissions now, however, will let us avoid the worst.

    Also, Martin, the IPCC is funded by the UN and written by publishing climatologists - less partial than reports by the Exxon-funded AEI and written by White House PR men, surely?

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